Chad Wackerman: Difference between revisions
From Allan Holdsworth Information Center
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=CHAD ON ALLAN= | =CHAD ON ALLAN= | ||
== | ==Modern Drummer, December 1988== | ||
RF: I know you always get a solo with Holdsworth. What is that gig like for a drummer? | |||
CW: That's very, very open. Basically, I write my own parts, and the bass player writes his own parts. First, Allan writes the guitar parts then we write parts that fit with that. | |||
RF: What about material that was previously recorded? | |||
CW: It's still pretty open. Actually, Frank said the same thing when I joined his band: "Whatever you do, don't become a Vinnie clone or a Terry clone. I don't want a replica of someone I've already had." Allan feels the same way. Allan's approach is that he likes to get guys in his band who play the music the way he wants to hear it, but he never gives us any instruction at all. We never talk about it; we just play it. | |||
RF: Take one of the songs you did with him and analyze that—maybe "Clown." | |||
CW: That's off the latest album, Sand. I think I was away when he did the basics, because he did it with a drum machine first. He took the drum machine away, and I played over it. | |||
RF: That was probably more confining than others, so pick a song where you feel good about the drum part you created. | |||
CW: There's one called "Tokyo Dream," which is on the Road Games record. I could play it for you, but I can't really describe it. There's a part that matches up to the guitar part pretty well, where the rhythms and the punctuations are the same. The accents on guitar are the same as the drums. I used my bell cymbals to match his harmonics, my garbage cymbals to match the bass line, and a couple of different hi-hats. | |||
RF: How was that piece brought to you? | |||
CW: Allan played the guitar part for us. He usually has a song section and then a separate section that is the solo section, rather than using a jazz form of A-A-B-A, and just going over and over that. The tune section is fairly strict rhythmically, which isn't very typical of him, but then on the solo section, it's much more open and a bit floatier. I usually try to hear the music first. I normally don't think of drum patterns first. | try to fit in with what's going on musically. | |||
RF: So that's a lot of improvisation live. | |||
CW: Yes. There's still form to pieces, but they're very open. | |||
CW: When I'm on tour with somebody, I like to listen to the opposite music of whatever music I'm playing on the tour. It's a good change. Often with Allan Holdsworth, we'd listen to pop music, Top-40 radio. | |||
==caravan with a drum solo: the chad wackerman interview== | ==caravan with a drum solo: the chad wackerman interview== | ||
